Stories, Essays & Memoir by Tina Petrick.

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Basic Bitch Running

Relax, there was no full blown fraud; though I grew up thinking you could get any job by copying a resume out of a library book and reciting a mantra of “I’m right on top of that, Rose”. Thanks Christina Applegate.

My infraction was more of a fib. Like saying you’re skilled in Photoshop, when best you can do is chop up a photo in MS Paint; or, listing ‘Intermediate French’ under ‘Languages’ though your vocabulary is limited to “Puis-je aller dans la salle de bain?” and Halloween nouns.

I’ll come out with the morale of the story right upfront: it’s risky telling a white lie on your resume. The faux photoshop pro disappoints the whole office with pixalated Christmas cards, the language liar is exposed when she answers ‘what is your raison d’etre?’ with ‘Oh, I don’t eat raisins, especially for dinner’.

Let me explain…

It was October 2008, mere days after one of the worst market crashes in modern history, and we were all looking for jobs: thousands of type-A, overachieving law students across Canada competing for scarce summer articled positions. It was dim. There were rumors circulating that the major law firms were cutting hiring numbers by fifty, maybe even eighty percent.

Summer articled jobs were a big deal, regarded as the golden ticket to a real-life lawyer job. If you did a good as a summer student, you were likely to get an articling job at the same firm. Prove yourself resilient (i.e., deranged) enough to survive articling, and you’d get a lawyer job, you’d be able to pay off your student loans, and you find love, happiness, and self-actualization.

Don’t find a summer job? You die alone. No exceptions.

I had been dreading the summer job hunt since I walked into my Winnipeg apartment, suitcases in tow. I opened the door and met my roommate for the very first time. She was hunched over a plastic IKEA table, in an otherwise bare space, behind mountains of 8 x 11 ½ inch paper and a bulky printer.

“Oh hi, I’m C,” she said, peeking up from her laptop with a smile. “Summer job applications for Toronto are due tomorrow. Are you applying for summer jobs? Which law firms? What cities? Any practice area you prefer?”

In fairness to C, a lot of pressure was put on students to follow this track: get a summer job, articling position, private practice lawyer job, become partner, die. As though there was no alternative career path worth pursuing. As though we were livestock, herded into the slaughterhouse.

If you’re familiar with my writing, you know I quit that treadmill, arguably the whole gym, after a few laps. At the same time, this image of C was a weird crystal ball into my near future. About a year and a month later…

“It’s all about fit,” our career counselor advised. “You want your resume to go beyond where you did your undergrad. Let the law firms get to know the real you.”

We were instructed to differentiate ourselves by adding an ‘Interests’ section to our resume. I picked my scalp. ‘Dancing’, ‘writing’, what else?

“Maybe we should start running or something?” I suggested to my friends, K and S.

I ran with the freedom of a gazelle under the autumn leaves of Assiniboine Park I hobbled through Assiniboine Park like an elephant with foot fungus. “What’s this pain in my side?” I cried in agony. “It’s called a runner’s stitch, you need to breathe through it,” K replied. “I think I’m dying,” I confessed.

I vowed never to run again.

**

“It says on your resume you like running?” the hiring partner said, glowing with excitement.

“Ah, yeah, totally,” I fibbed.

“Well, aren’t we in luck. We’re looking for another member for our running team. We love running. It’s our thing. Some law firms are golfers, others dominate the softball season. Us, we run.”

Gulp.

**

Soon, I was signed up for a 100 kilometer relay race with the law firm: my section about 14 kilometers with hills. I consumed about eight Advil before the run. “I don’t think that’s good for your liver,” one of my co-workers (who has WON marathons, speaks five languages and sings Opera, no less) said.

**

“All the lawyers I know do two things,” my only non-lawyer friend in Vancouver, J, observed, “Drink and run.”

“Does that mean we’re all masochists?” I asked.

“Not to mention, alcoholics,” she added.

**

In a few months, I’m getting married. In the meantime, I’m stuck in Smalltown, Wisconsin, Population 468. No gym in sight, not to mention any fancy barre method classes or yoga or Bollywood dance, or other forms of exercise that aren’t repeatedly and painfully pounding pavement.

Though I feel a bit like a basic-bitch-bride trying to tone up for the ‘big day’ (gag…I hate that phrase…why is a wedding generally regarded as a woman’s most important life event? Are we still in 1950?), I’ve yet again given into running.

My 5K time is almost TWICE as slow compared to when I was articling* (*humble brag: I once medalled, that’s right, medalled in a 5K race in Vancouver with a 20 minute 5K; when I lie, I commit hard). My joints are achy and aging. My lungs are constricted.